The Sims 4 world and neighbourhood gameplay details revealed

Maxis has revealed a host of new information about The Sims 4 neighbourhoods, world and other gameplay details.

Ahead of The Sims 4 release date on September 2, Maxis has offered some fresh new details on the game, including how many loading screens you can expect when traversing the game’s new worlds.

Inspired by New Orleans, Willow Creek is the first confirmed world for The Sims 4 and is split into six neighbourhoods.

Only one of these neighbourhoods can be active at one time, rather than it being one giant open world like The Sims 3. Neighbourhoods can have up to 5 lots within them, but only one can be actively loaded at once.

Within the neighbourhoods, you will have access to Public Spaces, which are open areas of the neighbourhoods not counted as a lot. These will be fully loaded at all times and your Sims and NPCs will be able to roam in the freely.

As for loading screens, you’ll notice that these are typically under 30 seconds long, which is shorter than that seen in The Sims 3. You’ll see them when moving from world to world, between neighbours, between Sims in different lots and when switching from a public space to an inactive lot.

However, apparently there won’t be a loading screen when moving from a public space to an active lot.

What’s interesting is that Maxis states you will be able to send Sims out into the world, and either follow them or control them using “away actions”. These will let you “choose other specific Sims for them to socialise with, you can build specific skills, can sleep, can have them maintain their needs… things like careers have their own set of away actions that are more relevant to their work”.

Aging is a bit more customisable in The Sims 4 too. You will have the option to just have your family age, while the rest of the NPC world ages, or have everyone aging at the same time. You could also choose to have your family age and everyone else doing the Peter Pan thing.

However, there is one special thing you’ll need to keep an eye on though, in that you’ll need to try for a baby if you want families to remain active. Otherwise you’ll see NPC characters moving into their home and the old family dying out.